The present invention relates to acetylenic monomers which can be cured to produce materials with nonlinear optical activity.
Considerable research effort has been directed toward the use of organic second-order nonlinear (NLO) polymers in practical devices. The predicted advantages of such organic polymers for frequency conversion and integrated optics applications is headed by potential ease of fabrication and low cost. The polymer properties necessary to efficiently frequency double light at 800 nm in a slab waveguide device include a .chi..sup.(2) of 60 pm/V (.mu..beta.=350.times.10.sup.-30 esu D) and no absorption at 400 nm.
For a polymeric material to have successful application in an electro-optic (EO) device, it needs to possess a somewhat different set of properties. A practical EO polymer must be spin coatable, easily poled by an electric field or self-assembled, have optical losses below 1 dB/cm and be capable of producing devices with modulation bandwidths of 100 GHz. For a NLO EO polymer material to be commercially realistic, it must also be able to retain a reasonable second-order activity (&gt;30 pm/V at 830 nm) at temperatures experienced during routine microelectronics circuit fabrication (as high as 320.degree. C. for 20 min.). For military applications, it is further necessary that a material retain at least 95% of its original EO coefficient after 10 years at 125.degree. C. Finally, the synthesis of any polymeric material for potential commercial use must address the issues of low cost producibility, toxicity/carcinogenicity and waste disposal.
We have prepared an acetylenic thermoset monomer which, when mixed with high performance thermoplastic materials, can be poled and cured at elevated temperatures to provide composites with second-order nonlinear optical (NLO) activity, improved thermal stability and optical transparency at wavelengths shorter than 830 nm.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an acetylenic thermoset monomer which, when mixed with high performance thermoplastic materials, can be poled and cured at elevated temperatures to provide composites with second-order nonlinear optical activity.
It is another object of the present invention to provide composite materials with second-order nonlinear optical activity.
Other objects and advantages of the present invention will be apparent to those skilled in the art.